Editing Musical film (section)

====The first musicals====
Musical short films were made by [[Lee de Forest]] in 1923–24. Beginning in 1926, thousands of [[Vitaphone]] shorts were made, many featuring bands, vocalists, and dancers. The earliest feature-length films with synchronized sound had only a soundtrack of music and occasional sound effects that played while the actors portrayed their characters just as they did in silent films: without audible dialogue.<ref name=KenrickJazz>Kenrick, John. [https://www.musicals101.com/1927-30film.htm "History of Musical Film, 1927-30: Hollywood Learns To Sing"]. Musicals101.com, 2004, accessed May 17, 2010</ref> ''[[The Jazz Singer]]'', released in 1927 by [[Warner Brothers]], was the first to include an audio track including non-[[Diegesis|diegetic]] music and diegetic music, but it had only a short sequence of spoken dialogue. This feature-length film was also a musical, featuring [[Al Jolson]] singing "Dirty Hands, Dirty Face", "Toot, Toot, Tootsie", "[[Blue Skies (1926 song)|Blue Skies]]", and "[[My Mammy]]". Historian [[Scott Eyman]] wrote, "As the film ended and applause grew with the houselights, [[Sam Goldwyn]]'s wife Frances looked around at the celebrities in the crowd. She saw 'terror in all their faces', she said, as if they knew that 'the game they had been playing for years was finally over'."<ref>'"Eyman, Scott. ''The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution'' Simon & Schuster, 1997, p. 160</ref> Still, only isolated sequences featured "live" sound; most of the film had only a synchronous musical score.<ref name=KenrickJazz/> In 1928, Warner Brothers followed this up with another Jolson part-talkie, ''[[The Singing Fool]]'', which was a blockbuster hit.<ref name=KenrickJazz/> Theaters scrambled to install the new sound equipment and to hire [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] composers to write musicals for the screen.<ref name=KenrickLove>Kenrick, John. [http://www.musicals101.com/1927-30film2.htm "History of Musical Film, 1927-30: Part II"]. Musicals101.com, 2004, accessed May 17, 2010</ref> The first all-talking feature, ''[[Lights of New York (1928 film)|Lights of New York]]'', included a musical sequence in a night club. The enthusiasm of audiences was so great that in less than a year all the major studios were making sound pictures exclusively. ''[[The Broadway Melody]]'' (1929) had a show-biz plot about two sisters competing for a charming song-and-dance man. Advertised by [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer|MGM]] as the first "All-Talking, All-Singing, All-Dancing" feature film, it was a hit and won the [[Academy Award for Best Picture]] for 1929. There was a rush by the studios to hire talent from the stage to star in lavishly filmed versions of Broadway hits. ''[[The Love Parade]]'' (Paramount 1929) starred [[Maurice Chevalier]] and newcomer [[Jeanette MacDonald]], written by Broadway veteran [[Guy Bolton]].<ref name=KenrickLove/>

Warner Brothers produced the first screen operetta, ''[[The Desert Song]]'' in 1929. They spared no expense and photographed a large percentage of the film in [[Technicolor]]. This was followed by the first all-color, all-talking musical feature which was entitled ''[[On with the Show (1929 film)|On with the Show]]'' (1929). The most popular film of 1929 was the second all-color, all-talking feature which was entitled ''[[Gold Diggers of Broadway]]'' (1929). This film broke all box office records and remained the highest-grossing film ever produced until 1939. Suddenly, the market became flooded with musicals, revues, and operettas. The following all-color musicals were produced in 1929 and 1930 alone: ''[[The Hollywood Revue of 1929]]'' (1929), ''[[The Show of Shows]]'' (1929), ''[[Sally (1929 film)|Sally]]'' (1929), ''[[The Vagabond King]]'' (1930), ''[[Follow Thru]]'' (1930), ''[[Bright Lights (1930 film)|Bright Lights]]'' (1930), ''[[Golden Dawn (film)|Golden Dawn]]'' (1930), ''[[Hold Everything (1930 film)|Hold Everything]]'' (1930), ''[[The Rogue Song]]'' (1930), ''[[Song of the Flame (film)|Song of the Flame]]'' (1930), ''[[Song of the West]]'' (1930), ''[[Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1930 film)|Sweet Kitty Bellairs]]'' (1930), ''[[Under a Texas Moon]]'' (1930), ''[[Bride of the Regiment]]'' (1930), ''[[Whoopee! (film)|Whoopee!]]'' (1930), ''[[King of Jazz]]'' (1930), ''[[Viennese Nights]]'' (1930), and ''[[Kiss Me Again (1931 film)|Kiss Me Again]]'' (1930). In addition, there were scores of musical features released with color sequences.

Hollywood released more than 100 musical films in 1930, but only 14 in 1931.<ref name=KenrickRodgers>Kenrick, John. [http://www.musicals101.com/1930film.htm "History of Musical Film, 1930s: Part I: 'Hip, Hooray and Ballyhoo'"]. Musicals101.com, 2003, accessed May 17, 2010</ref> By late 1930, audiences had been oversaturated with musicals and studios were forced to cut the music from films that were then being released. For example, ''[[Life of the Party (1930 film)|Life of the Party]]'' (1930) was originally produced as an all-color, all-talking musical comedy. Before it was released, however, the songs were cut out. The same thing happened to ''[[Fifty Million Frenchmen]]'' (1931) and ''[[Manhattan Parade]]'' (1932) both of which had been filmed entirely in [[Technicolor]]. [[Marlene Dietrich]] sang songs successfully in her films, and [[Rodgers and Hart]] wrote a few well-received films, but even their popularity waned by 1932.<ref name=KenrickRodgers/> The public had quickly come to associate color with musicals and thus the decline in their popularity also resulted in a decline in color productions.